Oh, Canada: Policymakers accused of censorship

I’m not going to pretend to understandthe legalities here. I suspect that like most of us educated in theU.S., my knowledge of Canadian politics and history is sorely lacking,but I have that nostalgic liberal (and that’s not a four-letter word,Fox News!) American tendency to view Canada as a little more sane thanthe land of my birth. You know, health care, gun control, lawsthat occasionally recognize LGBT citizens as human beings.

But it looks like more than my delusionsof utopia could be at risk. Working its way through the Canadian governmentright now is a bill that wouldgive the CanadianHeritage minister the right to ax promised funding for any film projectit deems “offensive.” Thisapparently includes

“gratuitous violence, significant sexual content that lacks an educationalpurpose, or denigration of an identifiable group.”That would seem to include films like these:

When Night Is Falling

Exotica

Crash (1996)

The Saddest Music in the World

I can’t say that I liked all of thosefilms, but I support the world that makes them possible. And thatmay be under attack.

Back to the text of the bill — “Significant sexual content thatlacks an educational purpose”? Now that’s chilling. Imaginean industry doomed to a future of Dear Diary. It’s true that this legal maneuveringis pulling the funding rug out from under filmmakers, rather than outrightbanning violence and sex, but the film industry is crying censorship. David Cronenberg calls the move an assault on the Charterof Rights and Freedoms:

“The irony is that it is theCanadian films that have given us an international reputation [that]would be most at risk because they are the edgy, relatively low-budgetfilms made by people like me and others that will be targeted by thispanel. The platform they’re suggesting is akin to a CommunistChinese panel of unknown people, who, behind closed doors, will makea second ruling after bodies like Telefilm Canada have already invested.”

There’s little doubt what kind of contentwill be under the cutting room knife. Conservative MP Dave Batterswant to limit funding to films for “mainstream” society that“Canadians can sit down and watch with their families in living rooms.”Of course, there’s no living room for queer families. Pat Robertson’s Canadian clone Canada Family Action CoalitionPresident Charles McVety, who claims his lobbying efforts are partiallyresponsible for the proposed changes, says that his contacts in governmentagree that “films promoting homosexuality, graphic sex or violenceshould not receive tax dollars.”

Hey McVety, doesn’t a film “promotinghomosexuality” count as educational? When I was coming out,these were my part of my manual:

I can’t say I was going to be firstin line for a ticket to Martin Gero‘s Young People F—ing.And if we’re talking films that don’t make the world a more pleasant place,I could live without Saw XXX: Another Return to aPit of Gratuitous Violence. But when any government whittlesaway at an industry based on a vaguely defined notions of offensiveness,it’s a worry.